Deadline: 12-Jun-25
The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) has launched the Training Program for Adolescents and Young People in TekoIA Artificial Intelligence.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) aims to stimulate and recognize real positive progress in the promotion, realization and guarantee of the rights of children and adolescents. Among others is the right to quality, equitable and inclusive education. Among UNICEF’s actions to guarantee the right to education is the 1 million Opportunities Initiative (1MiO), which aims to promote a positive transition from school to the world of work, promoting training and decent work opportunities for adolescents and young people.
The Artificial Intelligence Program of the 1 million Opportunities initiative, known as TEKoIA, consists of a living territory of rescue and creation, where memory and innovation intertwine to reconstruct the perspective of education from the deepest roots of Brazilian cultural identity
Sectors and Areas of Specialization
Education
Education – general
Challenge and Opportunity
The TekoIA program was born from the recognition that they are experiencing a profound transformation in the way they learn, teach and relate to knowledge — especially in light of the rapid advance of digital technologies and artificial intelligence. In a world increasingly mediated by automated systems, it is essential that digital and AI literacy go beyond the technical domain, involving the capacity for ethical judgment, critical thinking and transformative action — exclusively human skills.
One of TekoIA’s central premises is to develop this literacy through active pedagogical practices, with methodologies that place adolescents and young people at the center of the educational process. The program recognizes that robots can recognize patterns, but only humans can judge, interpret and transform realities. Based on this understanding, TekoIA is structured to offer educational experiences that empower educators as teachers, mentors and facilitators of learning, strengthening listening and mediation from a critical and dialogical perspective.
TekoIA proposes a territorialized journey that begins with immersion in the territory, continues with technical and critical training in artificial intelligence for educators and students, and culminates in the mobilization of these adolescents and young people to create solutions applied to their own contexts. These solutions constitute tools for recomposing learning — understood here not only as recovering content, but as rebuilding links, meanings and interrupted trajectories, especially in the post-pandemic scenario, marked by the increase in school dropouts and the intensification of structural inequalities, such as multidimensional poverty.
Strategic Drivers
Artificial Intelligence Literacy: Promote AI education by ensuring that adolescents, young people and educators have access to a curriculum that combines technological skills with recognition of local cultural heritage.
Mobilization of Students and Educators: Encourage the active participation of adolescents and young people in re-evaluating the local application of the program, promoting the co-creation of new formats that are relevant and sustainable in their communities, combined with the identification of their demands.
Engagement with Local Communities and Networking: The program aims to establish partnerships with local cooperatives, NGOs and cultural groups, expanding its reach with the support of educational institutions and UNICEF. Through community activations, such as workshops and events, it seeks to engage communities, encourage the use of AI to solve local challenges and promote the exchange of experiences. The goal is to create a network of connections between communities to share learning and strengthen collaboration and social innovation in the territory.
Inter-Ministerial and Local Government Dialogues: Establish conversations between different ministries to influence public policies, ensuring that AI education and community demands are integrated into government agendas. Engage with subnational governments to foster collaboration and ensure that program initiatives meet the specific needs of communities, strengthening local governance.
Monitoring, Data Collection, Report Production and Seminar: Implement a system continuous monitoring and data collection to assess the impact of the program.
Funding Information
- Indicative Budget: 1.00000
Geographic Focus
- Brazil
- Bahia
Expected Results
- Result 1 – Adolescences and Youth Mobilized and Involved in the Listening and Interview Phases
- Result 2 – Tekoia Methodology Built in a Participatory Way with Local Actors and Youth
- Result 3 – Course Expansion and Methodology
- Result 4 – Training of Facilitators, Adolescents and Young Leaders and Educators and Implementation of Training Tracks with Youth in the Territories
Eligibility Criteria
- The following CSOs are considered eligible to participate in this Call for Expressions of Interest:
- Have a registration in the country of origin
- Are not included in any of the specific sanctions lists of the UN Security Council;
- Act within the framework of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (resolution 44/25 of the United Nations General Assembly) and the Statute of the Child and Adolescent;
- Have proven experience in educational inclusion actions.
For more information, visit UN Partner Portal.
